Notre Dame’s comeback effort against Ohio State came up short on Monday night, with the Buckeyes ultimately winning the national championship 34–23.
After Ohio State jumped out to a 31–7 lead, Notre Dame attempted to claw back into contention in the second half. For a moment, it looked as though they had a shot to make things very interesting.
The Irish cut the Ohio State lead to 31–15, and after regaining possession on a timely fumble, drove down the field into the red zone with just under 10 minutes to play, where the offense stalled. Facing fourth-and-goal from the 9-yard line, Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman elected to kick a field goal, rather than taking another shot at the end zone.
The decision immediately raised eyebrows from the analytics crowd, and adding insult to injury, the short kick doinked off the post, leaving the Notre Dame deficit at 16.
After the game, Freeman broke down his reasoning for kicking in that spot.
“I just thought instead of being down 16, let’s try and go down 13,” Freeman said. “I know it’s still a two-score game, but you have a better probability of getting 14 points than you do 16 points. If it was a shorter fourth-and-goal situation, I probably would have gone for it, but I just felt that fourth-and-9 was not a great chance for us to make that.”
Marcus Freeman on his decision to kick the field goal: pic.twitter.com/vtVsje6SzC
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It’s not hard to understand Freeman’s perspective here. Down 16, Notre Dame was already in a tough spot. While it was technically a two-score game, the Irish would need to make both two-point conversions on their two hypothetical touchdowns to tie the game against Ohio State. With a field goal, two touchdowns would win the game.
That said, by giving up the chance to cut it to a one-score game by electing to kick the field goal, Notre Dame consigned itself to needing two more possessions to come back, which was far from guaranteed with under 10 minutes to play.
Ultimately, the kick was missed, meaning the result was the same as if they had failed to convert on fourth-and-goal. To their credit, Notre Dame was able to force one of the stops they needed to keep things competitive late, but they couldn’t find a final possession to potentially tie the game.
The math of football is never easy.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Marcus Freeman Explains Eyebrow-Raising Field Goal Decision vs. Ohio State.
